I love having time at the end of the year/beginning of the year to reset. We've been decluttering and getting organized and making plans for this year and it feels awesome.

Last year at this time I had a lot to celebrate as we started 2016. I celebrated our new puppy but now we've had Perdi for over a year and she's still such a great part of my life. She's adorable and sweet and it's so neat to see how she's another family member now. I'm super glad to have potty training and puppy training behind us for the most part...she could still work on not jumping on people and on not stealing food...but that's okay.

This year, we have another new addition to the family. My oldest son asked us for a bearded dragon for Christmas. He's wanted a lizard for a long time and it finally felt right. So now we also have a reptile running around. His name is Zeke and he's pretty fun too.

Besides Perdi and Zeke, I have a list of what I also loved about 2016 to officially celebrate (and move on...).

What I Loved About 2016:

My OLW for 2016 was 'revel' and I tried to soak up all the fun things we did in 2016. I used Instagram to snap and share pictures. We did so many fun things but I also tried to just be happy with little things too, like time to write at Starbucks or reading books with my kids.

I connected with so many new writing friends this year. I met Kelli Newby, Traci Chee and other friends from my 2014 Pitch Wars group in real life. I found new CPs and was buoyed up by CPs I already had. (It's neat to watch how relationships develop over time...the ones that get more special as time goes on are so wonderful.) There are so many wonderful new writer people in my life I can't even list them. How cool is that?

This year, I made it to Nerdcamp and NCTE again. I'm always honored to present and learn so much from connecting with others there. There's always something to learn and both of these conferences teach me so much.

We also did some great traveling. We stayed close and went to Indianapolis for a spring break road trip to visit with my college roommate and her family and then we also did a trip to Wisconsin Dells and had fun at all the waterparks (the kids had never been). But the best trip from 2016 was the two weeks we spent in Guatemala. I had never been before and it was so perfect to be there with all of my family.

After Guatemala, the best experience this year was getting an agent. I signed with Danielle Smith from Lupine Grove Creative and I couldn't be happier. Hooray! I'm still so excited and think I will be forever.

So now it's time to celebrate 2017! Hooray!!! I shared my one little word for 2017 on Instagram and now I'm sharing it here...

*drum roll*

Here's what the word zealous means to me: having great energy or enthusiasm in pursuit of a cause or an objective. This is the first year that a word chose me and I'm all about it. I've already got lots of ideas and plans and I'm full of energy and enthusiasm (it might have a *little* do to with that latte I started this post with...). I'll share more about my plans for living this one little word this year. Let's do this!